Monaco vs Barcelona Tips & Live Stream - Game two: Blaugrana push for the break in EL QF

• Monaco vs Barcelona  Preview
• Monaco Form & Team News
• Barcelona  Form & Team News
• Head to Head

Before the playoffs started, there was a general feeling that Monaco were the most favorable opponent among the teams with home-court advantage. That was probably fair, as they had been pretty inconsistent and underperformed since Vassilis Spanoulis took over as head coach.

Still, Monaco didn’t crack under pressure in Game 1 and handled Barcelona quite easily, winning 97–80. Mike James may not be having his best season, but he played really well in this one, finishing with 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting.

Daniel Theis also had a great game with 22 points and 5 rebounds, showing why he was brought in, and Elie Okobo—who’s faced a lot of criticism this season—added 19 points and 7 assists. Monaco were +22 with him on the court, which says a lot about his impact.

Unlike in some other games, Jordan Loyd, Jaron Blossomgame, and Alpha Diallo didn’t do much offensively—they combined for just 7 points—but they played a big role on defense, especially in shutting down Barcelona’s backcourt.

Vassilis Spanoulis decided to leave Nick Calathes and Georgios Papagiannis out of the lineup for this one, while Vitto Brown and Donatas Motiejunas stayed on the bench and didn’t play.

Barcelona  Form & Team News

Led by Kevin Punter, who hit some tough shots typical of him, Barcelona started Game 2 well and held a steady lead throughout the first quarter, which ended 25–21.

However, their game completely fell apart at the start of the second quarter, when Monaco went on an incredible 20–2 run in just five minutes—a stretch during which, somewhat surprisingly, coach Penarroya kept his top scorers Punter, Parker, and Brizuela on the bench.

In the second half of the quarter, Dario Brizuela and Youssoupha Fall combined for 15 points and cut the deficit to just two, keeping the home team within reach.

But that turned out to be Barcelona’s last push. In the third quarter, Monaco pulled away again, building a double-digit lead that the visitors couldn’t recover from.

Barcelona were outplayed in nearly every aspect of the game, but what hurt them the most were their turnovers—20 in total—which often led to easy fast-break points for Monaco.

The frustration from Barca’s poor performance boiled over early in the fourth quarter, when veteran Tomas Satoransky was ejected after a hard foul on Matthew Strazel.

Head to Head

After two heavy defeats to Barcelona in the regular season, Monaco got their revenge when it mattered the most. These two clubs also met at the Final Four in the 2022/23 season, where Monaco claimed a 78–66 victory in the third-place game.